“The NDP are going to run a negative and personal campaign . . . It will be interesting to see how the Liberals respond.”

Jeff Jedras

Liberal blogger

For a few hours last weekend in Toronto, some of us were treated to a sneak preview of a political duel that promises to be a running story right through to the 2015 election — the battle between the Liberals and the NDP.

What did we learn? Well, betting people might be smart to hold off on any wagers right now.

Liberals gathered at the Toronto Reference Library to choose Chrystia Freeland, the international author and journalist, as their candidate to run in the byelection to replace Bob Rae in the Commons.

New Democrats, meanwhile, flooded into the downtown YMCA to hand their nomination to yet another author and journalist (and former Star columnist), Linda McQuaig.

Because of the different styles of meetings — Liberals, a five-hour, drop-in session; NDP, a quick couple of hours — some of us were able to jump between the two gatherings and make some comparisons.

Alice Funke, who writes an enormously informative blog called Pundits’ Guide, wrote up a handy chart of “23 differences” between the events and the winning candidates. Funke took careful note of everything from the political swag being handed out to the titles of the books about rich people that both winning candidates have written (Freeland, Plutocrats; McQuaig, The Trouble With Billionaires.)

What jumped out at me, however, was a number that was roughly the same. Between 400 and 500 people turned up at the NDP nomination, in a riding with 800 voting members. The Liberals had many more eligible voting members — nearly 1,300 — but only 500 or so showed up to cast a ballot on Sunday afternoon.

It was hard not to notice that the NDP event had more energy and heat — figuratively and literally. New Democrats assembled in a much smaller and hotter room and McQuaig’s speech was filled with fiery digs against the Liberals, leader Justin Trudeau and Freeland.

“I can expose Freeland and ultimately Trudeau as having no real solutions,” said McQuaig, who also had the crowd chanting “post-Harper era,” to celebrate what she said is the looming demise of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

The Liberal event was much cooler and more sedate: sort of what you’d expect if you held your meeting in a library. (Sshh!) Small clusters of people milled around in a vast room, politely lining up to vote and exchanging gossip in the corners.

And because they are Liberals, there was of course some grumbling among rival supporters. I stood outside after the event and listened to non-Freeland backers sniping about the result and their new candidate.

Freeland pointedly refused to reply to McQuaig’s swipes against her, saying it wasn’t the day to do so. In fact, I’m not sure anyone even mentioned the NDP at the Liberal meeting.

“Sensible strategy, but also telling,” wrote Liberal blogger Jeff Jedras, who also attended both meetings. “The NDP are going to run a negative and personal campaign, against both Freeland and Trudeau. It will be interesting to see how the Liberals respond.”

It would be unwise to draw too many sweeping conclusions from the different meetings — some of them, again, are explained by sheer logistics such as room size and time allotted for voting.

But there were enough cultural differences on display to show that Liberals shouldn’t take this Toronto Centre “stronghold” for granted. The same traits that have dogged the party for a decade or two now — internal strife and complacency — were hovering around the meeting at the library.

On the other hand, in the days after the meetings, we saw some other differences, notably about the leadership of both parties.

Trudeau wasted little time in getting to Toronto to make an appearance at the side of his star candidate, on Monday afternoon at Ryerson University. A couple of days later, Freeland was at Trudeau’s side in the Commons foyer, being introduced as his new economic adviser.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, by contrast, waited a few days before heading to Toronto to do an event with McQuaig. The candidate, meanwhile, didn’t hesitate to say in post-nomination interviews that she had a different view from Mulcair on taxing the rich.

Liberals and New Democrats may not agree on much these days. And why would they? That would be boring.

But they have both said the Toronto Centre byelection is an important signpost for what’s ahead in 2015.

Judging from what I saw last Sunday, at different ends of a sunny stroll down Yonge St., it’s going to be a very interesting struggle between the two parties, with an outcome that neither can take for granted.

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